Cummins Masterclass Seals Series Win for Australia as Pakistan Falters Again

On the fourth day of the second Test on Friday, Australia's captain Pat Cummins ended a strong resistance from Pakistan with a masterclass in clutch bowling, taking ten wickets to help his side win by 79 runs and seal a 2-0 series win.

The final day of play appeared to be close to being decided, but the pacer intervened to remove Mohammad Rizwan, the last remaining recognized batsman for Pakistan, and record his 250th Test wicket.

After that, Cummins (5/49) removed Aamer Jamal for a duck, which led to a half-hour of extra play. In that time, he took his tenth wicket of the game and fifth of the innings to help clean up the tail.

It capped off an incredible year in which he guided Australia to the World Test Championship, a 50-overs World Cup victory, and the Ashes in England. It was his second 10-wicket match haul in 57 Tests.

After bowling Australia out for 262 before lunch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the visitors set an intimidating victory target of 317 runs and formed a number of partnerships that hindered the formidable Australian attack.

The match took a turn for the better when Cummins split the final significant stand of 57 between Agha Salman (50) and Rizwan (35) to bring the target under 100 runs.
Over the course of the first four days, Pakistan had made multiple threats to seize control of the match, but they ultimately let the Australians off the hook.

Shan Masood on Friday.

Australia recovered from 16/4 after lunch on Thursday and resumed on 187/6 on a sunny morning at the MCG, led by an innings of 96 from Mitchell Marsh.

Before being trapped leg before by seamer Mir Hamza (4/32) to end the innings, wicketkeeper Alex Carey scored 52 to help extend the lead.

Given that in 146 years of Test matches at the MCG, only one team had successfully chased more than 300 runs in the fourth innings, Pakistan were always going to be up against it.

Before lunch, Abdullah Shafique, whose missed slip catches in both innings had cost Pakistan a lot of runs, went for four when he lunged at a delivery from Mitchell Starc, allowing Usman Khawaja to take the catch in the cordon.

Soon after play resumed, Cummins trapped Imam-Ul Haq in front for 12, but Australia's progress was halted by a 61-run partnership between Shan Masood and Babar Azam.

Once more, Cummins created a breakthrough by forcing Masood into a mistake that Steve Smith took advantage of when the Pakistani captain reached 60. After that, Josh Hazlewood took Babar out for 41.

Although Pakistan was still 155 runs short of their target, they managed to establish another partnership for just 16 runs when Starc (4/55) sent down a delivery that grew big on Saud Shakeel, who top-edged it behind to Carey for 24.

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